My Dad's a PC, part II
Before Thanksgiving I spent several weeks trying to find a good PC for my dad. I didn't find any. I even looked into building a custom PC, based on the advice of navajo, but researching all of the possible motherboard/CPU combos gave me a headache. I took a look at the Sony All-in-one PCs, but I was not encouraged by their website which indicated a 4-6 week wait time, and no Windows 7. I also considered HP, which has gotten good reviews, but I couldn't ignore the tech support horror stories.
Eventually I decided that Dell was mediocre in all of the categories, but at least they weren't at the bottom of any of the categories, so I decided to recommend Dell. My dad placed the order, and it arrived within a few days. At least they get points for quick shipping. On Thanksgiving I hooked it all up. The keyboard and mouse seemed pretty cheap, but the case and monitor looked pretty nice. I used LapLink PC Mover to move all of his files over, and by 8pm he was up and running on the new computer.
After a week of using the computer, my dad had some feedback, and I helped make some adjustments. However, as I was making those adjustments, I couldn't help but notice a small blue window flash up on screen about every 60 seconds, but it would disappear before I could see what it was. I was concerned. I brought up the Task Manager, and when the blue window flashed on screen, I noticed a DataSafe process jump to the top. Ok, so I figured out it was Dell's DataSafe application. But why was it flashing? I googled it, but couldn't find the source of the problem. Same thing with Dell's website.
I broke down and decided to try Dell's tech support. I really didn't feel like talking to someone from India, so I tried Chat. But before I could start Chat, Dell prompted me for a service tag which I easily found on the back of the computer. I clicked submit, and the website told me that the tag was invalid. I tried again. Same thing. So I decided to try email support. Same problem. Phone support, same problem. WTF? In order to get technical support, I need a service tag, but to find out why my service tag was invalid, I needed technical support. :-/
After googling service tag, I found that many others were having the same problem. Finally I found a recommendation to contact customer service, rather than technical support. So I sent an email to customer service. We'll see how long it takes to get a response. I hope it solves the problem. But until then I am regretting my decision to recommend Dell.
Eventually I decided that Dell was mediocre in all of the categories, but at least they weren't at the bottom of any of the categories, so I decided to recommend Dell. My dad placed the order, and it arrived within a few days. At least they get points for quick shipping. On Thanksgiving I hooked it all up. The keyboard and mouse seemed pretty cheap, but the case and monitor looked pretty nice. I used LapLink PC Mover to move all of his files over, and by 8pm he was up and running on the new computer.
After a week of using the computer, my dad had some feedback, and I helped make some adjustments. However, as I was making those adjustments, I couldn't help but notice a small blue window flash up on screen about every 60 seconds, but it would disappear before I could see what it was. I was concerned. I brought up the Task Manager, and when the blue window flashed on screen, I noticed a DataSafe process jump to the top. Ok, so I figured out it was Dell's DataSafe application. But why was it flashing? I googled it, but couldn't find the source of the problem. Same thing with Dell's website.
I broke down and decided to try Dell's tech support. I really didn't feel like talking to someone from India, so I tried Chat. But before I could start Chat, Dell prompted me for a service tag which I easily found on the back of the computer. I clicked submit, and the website told me that the tag was invalid. I tried again. Same thing. So I decided to try email support. Same problem. Phone support, same problem. WTF? In order to get technical support, I need a service tag, but to find out why my service tag was invalid, I needed technical support. :-/
After googling service tag, I found that many others were having the same problem. Finally I found a recommendation to contact customer service, rather than technical support. So I sent an email to customer service. We'll see how long it takes to get a response. I hope it solves the problem. But until then I am regretting my decision to recommend Dell.